Postmarked for the Afterlife
by xXastraXx
Summary: A letter that Layton wrote to Claire after she died as a coping mechanism. Actually a preview for a larger fic. Please R&R to let me know if you'd like to see the rest! (Rated T for implied themes)


**Inspired by a lot of things I've seen around the internet and in my life.**

**This is actually a small preview to a fanfic I'm planning on writing after I finish 'The Stray'. It involves Layton considering what love really is- on a very deep level- as a result of Luke asking him one day.** **I won't go into specific details on the entire story, as I don't want to spoil it; however, it takes place after the events of Unwound Future- a time when I've little doubt the wound from losing Claire has been freshly reopened.**

**This preview is in the form of a letter that Layton wrote to Claire not long after she died as a coping mechanism. In the story he would be rereading it, but in this preview the letter is all you get to see.**

**I'm debating on whether or not to actually finish up the bits I have written for this story- it's given me a lot of obscenely sad feelings. This is my first time writing a sad fic, after all...**

**Please let me know if you'd like to see more in a review! (This would be edited or deleted when the full fic was uploaded!)**

**_-XXXX-_**

_Dear Claire,_

_I never very much liked the name 'Hershel' until I tasted it through your kiss—did you know? I hope you did. So many things were cloudy and confusing in my life until you lifted the fog with your smile. So many things I never understood you taught me with your touch._

_Like why your soft lips trailing across my neck was considered such an intimate affair—I never understood why it was so different from your lips on mine- until I felt your teeth graze my pulse. Then I realized how easily you could have tore me open and let me die in your arms, but instead you chose to kiss._

_If the contents of this letter could connect my heart to yours once again, if these words could transcend the fabric between life and death, I would want you to know how happy you once made me. That even though not having you here to hold in my arms is like having my heart stabbed with a knife on each lonely night, I will survive. Even the darkest nights will eventually give way to dawn, and a true gentleman must always greet the new day with hope for the future—you taught me that._

_I want you to know that, if an afterlife exists, you should pursue happiness within it. I want someone to know the warmth of your smile, to feel the way I did when I was in your presence. I have a life here I must live to the fullest if I ever hope to honor your memory, so it will likely be a long while before we meet again, and I would never dream of letting your eyes be filled with woe over waiting for me._

_…But please don't forget. Don't forget about my lips beneath your fingers and how you told me things you never told another soul. Don't forget about our first awkward date, when I was too afraid to dare say the things I later learned you wanted me to. Don't forget about the look in my eyes whenever I gazed into yours. About the ring I still have that never ended up on your finger. It was so easy for you, your every movement became a cherished memory to me- almost as if you were pulling them out of a certain silk hat. Even so, don't forget. It is these simple things that will keep us connected across the great divide._

_Remember also, that everything you ever gave me I have kept sacred, and so long as I breathe, I always will._

_Before you, I had never experienced romance, so I can't say whether or not what we had was truly love… But despite this pain, I'd like to think it was… And if it wasn't, I hope I never experience it. The wake of your memory has taught me I would be too fragile to bear it._

_Even so, I would never take back a single moment I spent with you. This pain that hangs heavy in my heart is a perpetual reminder of the joy I would have never experienced otherwise, and I would not change those memories for the world._

_In closing, I want to apologize for not being stronger. For not being brave enough to say the things I should have said when there was still time. That ring weighs far more now than it did when I bought it. It carries the weight of the day when I saw you wearing pale white in a photo over your empty casket, rather than by my side before a priest..._

_And I was planning to tell you on that day if you said yes—was planning to make a vow to you in that beautiful white dress. _

_Instead I whispered it to the tombstone with your name on it, the words stabbing me with the knife of hypocrisy:_

_"If I ever felt like home to you, it was because you were safe with me… You'll always be safe with me."_

_Ironic how, even now, the sentiment is the one I hope you know most of all._

_-From a heart that is always yours-_

_Hershel_


End file.
